The Academie

by Dunlap, Susanne

  I want to laugh aloud to hear Caroline speak of the library, which she has entered but once. “I hear she has a well-thumbed copy of Machiavelli,” I say, knowing that Caroline can have no idea what I speak of. She could barely read when she arrived two years ago. I’m astonished at how glibly she pretends to be educated.

  Whether she understands my jab or not I do not know, because she deftly changes the subject and studies Eliza, looking her up and down as if she were a new toy. “Dear Eliza, I see we shall have to do something about your hair.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Eliza asks. She looks cross. Perhaps Caroline has not yet influenced her enough to make her hang on Caroline’s every word and believe all she says.

  “It is so beautiful! I did not mean to criticize. Only with such hair, I know my own maid could work magic with it. But perhaps she should not. You would quite take away all my beaux.”

  Now Eliza’s cheeks glow pink. She is young. Perhaps too young to be thinking of men and love just yet, and perhaps Caroline has embarrassed her. I know Caroline is disingenuous. She has only one interest. It is General Murat, whom she longs to marry, but whom her brother will not permit to see her.

  “I would be honored if she would try,” Eliza says.

  Oh, dear. The process has begun. No one is immune. Caroline even worked her cunning upon Madame Campan in some way, although I feel that at heart Madame does not like her. She accepts her because we must all be Republicans now. But she would prefer to have her fashionable school filled with girls like me, who have titles and lineage, even if it extends to Martinique on my mother’s side. That is why she gives such preference to the Auguier sisters, Marthe and Jeanne.

  I am thankful that our little dance is interrupted by the younger classes in their green, pink, and blue caps. I don’t know them all, but the Blues—Marie, Constance, Émilie, Marguerite, and Catherine—are promising girls who will take their places in society and be a credit to the school.

  “Bonjour! Bonjour!” they call out, full of the energy of children, although they are between eleven and fourteen years old already and could marry in another few years. Caroline reaches into her reticule and pulls out sweets for them—absolutely forbidden before evening tea. Yet if I told Madame Campan, I would only become the enemy. I smile at Eliza, but her eyes are drawn hungrily to the sweets. I shake my head just a little. She turns her attention to the brioche on her plate.

  Chatter fills the air and I sit quietly, sipping my tea. Before long the school bell tinkles in the distance.

  “There is our signal,” Caroline says, standing and crooking her arm with the clear expectation that Eliza will take it, and so she does.

  “That’s the school bell?” Eliza asks. “Where I went to school in Virginia the schoolmistress rang a great loud bell that could be heard clear across my father’s fields.”

  “Did you go to school with Negro children?” asks Constance, always the one to say something awkward.

  Eliza draws herself up. “Certainly not! Our Negroes are slaves and do not go to school.”

  I shudder, recalling the slaves I saw in Martinique when Maman and I went there long ago. I must find a way to tell Eliza that slavery is not spoken of in Europe now.

  “I’m fascinated by the Africans. My brother has been in Egypt,” Caroline says.

  My brother has, too. He was badly wounded, at Napoléon’s side. Caroline knows it was a wicked thing to remind me of. But I do not even look at her, just lead the way to the schoolroom for our lessons.

  3

  Madeleine

  There is no heat in my attic room, and the blanket that covers me is threadbare. I hear a mouse scratching in the corner, but even he does not stay, finding a hole that might lead him below, where the rooms are warmer. Although I am in the heart of Paris, one would never know it. The lights have almost all been extinguished and the sounds of revelry have died away. I could be anywhere in the world, it is so quiet and dark. It must be very early in the morning.

  Somewhere in Paris, girls like me are in school. Or perhaps they are not exactly like me. Those whose fathers were aristocrats and who have any money or friends after the Terreur might perhaps be in convents. Perhaps others, the daughters of members of the Directoire or merchants who have become wealthy through other people’s misfortune, are at private schools run by elderly ladies who are trying to put bread upon their tables.

  I am in a school of my own, where I have been learning the skills I need to make my way in the world. I’ve been here almost as long as I can remember. It’s the school of life, interpreted for the entertainment of those who can spare the price of a ticket. Others know it as the Comédie Française.

  We came here—my mother and I—after my papa threw us out of his house. I was very small, but aware enough to understand his stinging words. I slept in a small attic room, hardly bigger than a closet. The door was not stout and I could hear everything that went on below. I knew those times when my papa came to her and they laughed and drank wine and tumbled into bed.

  I also knew when other men were there. Maman was very beautiful, and still is. But her beauty has made her cruel.

  And so on that night when Papa found her with the director of the theater in her bed, I was not surprised by what he did.

  “You and your half-breed spawn can go to the devil!” my papa said, his voice trembling with rage.

  A moment later he yanked open the door to my sleeping cubby and dragged me to my feet. I saw his face go from blind fury to a kind of dawning awareness as I peered up into his eyes. While my mother and her maid threw all her gowns and jewels into baskets and trunks behind him, he knelt down in front of me and took hold of my shoulders.

  “If only you did not have so much of your mother in you, I would keep you, raise you as a lady, so you could make a good match.” I could see behind his eyes to the molten emotions that coursed through him, although I didn’t understand what they were.

  “I have not been naughty, Papa,” I whispered.

  He enfolded me in a fierce embrace, broken when my mother took hold of his collar from behind and made him stand. She slapped him, hard. “You are lucky that I choose not to run you through with a dagger!” she hissed, as if he were the one who had been unfaithful.

  Since then I have learned a great deal about jealousy.

  The theater director could do no less than take us in after that time, but he would not avow us openly. Instead, he made Maman his new étoile, the exotic star to attract crowds who wanted to ogle and gloat over her misfortune. And it turned out that Maman has talent. She enters into the characters she plays. Sometimes, when she adopts the personality of a noble heroine, she even makes me like her.

  But as soon as she steps off the stage and the applause has died away, she becomes the bitter monster I know only too well.

  Tonight I have retired to my attic room to sleep while my mother attends a ball. I am not sad or sorry to be alone. I have a letter from my beloved. He has returned!

  I shall come for you soon, ma chérie. I must attend upon the general tonight. We are to go to a ball, a celebration of the recent victories. But it is just the beginning. Something big will happen soon, something that will change the way France is governed. The Directoire must look to its back, or it will soon find itself out on the street. But I should not tell you this, except that I know I can trust you. Oh, how I wish I could present you to my mother and my sister as my wife! That, too, will come. Adieu.

  I pray that he will not encounter my mother, for I know they must be at the very same ball. Maman would not go anywhere that was not at the precise center of everything, where she couldn’t show herself to the greatest advantage.

  I cannot blame her. She has suffered much as well. The only way she knows to survive is to be the most beautiful, most desired woman in her world.

  Despite her wishes to the contrary, I have found it impossible to remain a small child, hidden in the background. I have grown, and now I am beautiful. I am still petite
and dark skinned, but my big eyes and youthful curves are a threat to her. She sees the way her gentlemen friends cast their hungry gazes over me when I help her maid put away her costumes or bring her cape before she goes out to supper. Now she sends me away when they come, and dresses me in the meanest rags she can find.

  But still, if what my secret friend says is true, I am loved. At first I didn’t believe it. But it has been some months since the first time he sent a note to me after a performance. He does not know the full extent of my life here, how desperate I am. I am afraid to let on, afraid that it will drive him away.

  He says he will marry me, when he comes of age. We are both young, although many girls my age are already promised. I’m certain Maman has forgotten how old I am, and conveniently ignores the fact that she should be looking to my future. I have no intention of making that future in this theater, in a world where nothing is real, where every night people pretend to be in love or to hate and then hang up their characters with their costumes.

  I close my eyes and imagine myself in some other place, not in my cold attic room alone, but cradled in my sweet one’s arms, wearing a beautiful gown, whirling to music in the warm candlelight of a glittering ball, and I fall asleep at last, contented.

  4

  Eliza

  I spent my entire first day at school observing Hortense and Caroline. I hardly had to observe! The bad blood between them is so obvious it could be embarrassing in any other setting. Here there is no one to pretend for. Even the young ones watch and wait for an opportunity to play one girl against the other. I thought the young students were all Caroline’s creatures in the morning. But by the end of the day, I wasn’t certain. Hortense has a quiet command that draws some of them to her with their needlework, as if copying her motions will make them more like her. And it is clear that Madame believes Hortense to be the ideal student. There is something about Hortense. Not just her beauty. She is fragile, as if some secret weighs on her, or some sorrow is always in her mind. I find myself wanting to protect her, despite the fact that she is older than me.

  As to where I am to be in this intriguing game—I have not yet decided. I promised my mother I would write to her each day, and so now I must try to remember every detail, every nuance of expression and meaning so that I can get my mother’s advice on how to play along without exposing my own hand. What is that hand exactly? What do I want to accomplish for myself in this place?

  I can see that the school itself is a grand enough setting now that I have resigned myself to being here. In addition to the large, airy parlor, there is a dining hall big enough for all forty students to sit down to dinner. And this leads to a ballroom. It must have been a lovely place once, although the chandeliers are swathed in netting and the gilding on the trim is worn off in most places. Still, I could imagine dancing here, my gown trailing behind me and my jewels glittering in the candlelight....

  That is not likely to occur here, however. A school is hardly the setting for an elegant ball. So what, then? What do I want?

  And suddenly, I know. I want to fall in love. Paris is so full of dashing young officers, and between Caroline and Hortense, I must be able to meet some of them. Oh, I know I shall likely return to Virginia and marry someone from a good family. But there is always the possibility of a lieutenant or a colonel, or perhaps even a marquis....

  And there is a school full of boys just across the street. One of the younger girls told me they sometimes watch them from the windows on the second floor as the boys take their exercise in the garden of the old convent building that houses them. I imagine they must be much more interesting than the rough lads in Virginia, who are good only at plowing the fields or killing birds with their guns. I have heard that there will be a tea party here in a day or two, and that some of the students from the boys’ school will come. Madame Campan thinks it’s important for us to learn how to behave among young men so that we are not flustered when we first go out in society.

  It will be difficult to accomplish even a flirtation, though, that is not fully in view of everyone. I promised my mother that I would behave and follow all the rules. One false step, she said, and she would send me back to Virginia while she remains in Paris to enjoy the society. She is thinking of the time at school last year, I know, when I found out that our teacher had a lover and threatened to expose her for it if she did not make me first in the class. I did not know the man was my teacher’s fiancé. She went to my mother. I had to be very obedient after that, and was never first, no matter how hard I tried. My spirits were so low. That is when Mama decided to bring me back to Paris.

  It is very quiet in the school. I expect everyone is asleep except for me. As my pen scratches on the page, I imagine it being as loud as a banging gong. This is the hour when Mama and I normally go over the day, whether we are in Virginia or in Paris. She sends the servants away, brushes my hair herself, and we talk. Whenever I feel uncertain about something that has happened, she helps me sort out the meanings and threads. So what if the daughter of a minor Virginia landowner pulled my hair and called me a snob? She is not worth bothering about, my mother would say. Her family rose to prominence only because her grandfather was a thief and swindled his partner out of his half of the business. And if the teacher pays more attention to a boy who wants to go to Harvard, I must simply accept that I am only a girl and there are other ways to make a name for myself.

  A small blob of ink drops onto the page. I have been sitting with my hand poised above the paper. Yet I still hear scratching. At first it is quiet, but it becomes louder.

  “Eliza!” The whisper is just audible. I lay down my pen and go to the door of my room. Those of us with maids have private rooms. The other girls sleep in dormitories on the top floor, one for each class. Except for Hortense, who as one who has been at the school for a long time—Caroline told me it has been four years—has her own room down the corridor.

  I open my door and am surprised to see Caroline standing there, not in her nightdress but in an evening gown and a velvet cloak.

  “Come! We have no time to lose.”

  She brushes past me into my room and heads straight for my wardrobe, opening the doors and rifling quickly through my gowns. She pulls out my best evening dress and tosses it on the bed.

  “Quickly!”

  Not a word of explanation. She simply expects me to dress and go with her! Where? I can’t help wondering. But if I am to dress for evening, it must be a party! Perhaps I will meet someone handsome and dance.

  “I’ll tell you all about it on the way. There’s nothing to worry about. I simply need your help. Do you have any jewels?”

  While I slip out of my nightdress and into the silk gown with lace at the neck, she plunges her hands into my jewel case, tossing aside a few pieces until she reaches my pearl ear bobs and sapphire necklace.

  “These will have to do. Now get your cloak. It’s cold.”

  As we run quietly as ghosts through the dark corridors of the school, I realize that Caroline never gave me the opportunity to deny her, that she simply assumed she could command and I would obey. From all I’ve heard of her famous brother, this presumptuousness is a family trait.

  An unmarked but very comfortable coach awaits us outside the gates of the school. As soon as we close the door behind us, the driver cracks his whip and we lurch forward over the cobbles.

  “I only hope we are not too late!” Caroline says with a cross glance at me, as though the lightning speed with which I prepared myself had somehow delayed us.

  I reach up my hand to pat my hair. I hadn’t yet taken it down for the day, but if I’d known I was going anywhere, I would have repinned it to catch up the strands that had fallen loose.

  “You’re fine; don’t worry. No one will look at you.” Caroline chews the side of her thumb and stares absently out the window. Her words hurt, just a little.

  “Where are we going?” I ask since she hasn’t volunteered any information.

  “To Paris. To
a party at a lady’s hôtel particulier.”

  I want to ask which lady, thinking it possible my mother will be there, but the abrupt way Caroline answers discourages me from saying anything more.

  And besides, isn’t this what I want? To go out to parties? I just didn’t expect to be doing so in secret in the middle of the night, without my mother’s knowledge or approval. Why does Caroline need me by her side? What purpose will I serve?

  The carriage is racing through the streets toward the gates of Paris. How will we get through at that hour? Must we pay a toll? I didn’t bring any money with me.

  Caroline remains silent most of the way. I think about trying to make small talk, but it feels out of place in these circumstances.

  After what seems too short a time, I hear the coachman telling the horses to pull up. I see a gate and a watchman ahead and the lights of Paris beyond. Caroline sits forward in her seat, fumbling for something tucked into her cloak. To my surprise, she draws out two silk masks.

  “Here! Put this on!”

  I quickly tie mine over my eyes, positioning the slits so that I can see out. Caroline has fastened hers remarkably quickly. Though she thinks I don’t notice, I see her take a small note from the folds of her cloak. The watchman comes to the window. She smiles and leans on the top of the door.

  “Merci, monsieur,” she says, putting out her gloved hand with the folded note tucked into her palm. I catch the fellow’s eyes. They are that lively dark brown I have noticed in the faces of some attractive Parisian gentlemen. He casts them rapidly over the note, and almost before I can register his reaction, he yells “Allez!” up to the coachman and we are off again.

  “Are you planning to tell me why we’re going out at this hour?” I ask, by now so mystified and curious I can stand it no longer.